Saturday, October 11, 2014

Week 1

9/23/14Iaorana friends and family!! Life is simply splendid here at the MTC! I cannot believe that it has already been a week! Time flies when you are having fun and keeping busy I guess! And let me tell you, we are definitely keeping busy! The day we arrived our first class was a language course. I walked into the classroom and immediately realized that we were not learning French. For a second I thought I was in the wrong place until I noticed my name "Tuahine Kofford" on the wall above my desk. Yes, we are in face learning Tahitian first. Our teacher (Orametua Hapairai) kept saying the words: "Iaorana" and "Maita'i roa" to me. Quite loudly and repeated himself several times. I was completely lost and frankly had no idea what he was saying. So I replied "Je ne sais pas!!" which means "I don't know" in French. He laughed. But this was not funny. I soon caught on and learned that these two phrases meant "Hello" and "you're doing well?" haha I had to laugh when I realized they were such simple things. My companion is amazing!! Sister Erekson is so amazing and smart and pretty and fun and funny. We have the best of times together. On our second day here, we were out on campus practicing our Tahitian by introducing each other to fellow missionaries. At one point, she introduced me as "Sister Jesus Christ." haha I quickly corrected her and we laughed so hard. Right after that, I introduced myself as "Sister Erekson." The struggle was real. When we arrived back to the classroom, our teacher had us do some role plays in preparation for teaching our Tahitian investigator. Our lesson started out great. We were making some small talk and things were going well. All of the sudden, we both got stuck and didn't know what our teacher was saying. After about five minutes of intensive struggling we both looked at each other and said: "Oh!!! His name is Teri'i!!!" Yes, he was telling us his name. We all laughed so hard. My district truly is amazing! The other Sister's names are, Sister Campbell from Georgia and Sister Arbuckle from Canada. They both have great things about them. We have a trio of Elders in our District. They are all super smart! I know that we are all together for a divine reason. It has now been a week and I can successfully pray, share my testimony, and teach lessons in Tahitian!! . . . Without notes! It is amazing! It is not a very complicated language except for the fact that all the words sound the same, K's and S's are T's, L's are R's, and R's are D's. Haha it is quite the adventure! But we are progressing at rapid rates! Our district is in a Zone with all of the Leon and Paris France missionaries. When we got here they tried to impress us by talking in French all the time. I think they were pleasantly surprised when Sister Erekson and I replied positively with our French. Most of my district has at least a little bit of a French background and we can all basically carry a conversation with the France missionaries. These missionaries leave in a week though and then we will be the cool kids on the block! Which is good! We attended sacrament meeting with these missionaries and everything was in French! I love singing French hymns! So so beautiful!! The spirit was so incredibly strong! Sunday was an incredible day in itself! We got to see the Ogden Temple rededication which was amazing! Just imagine 2,500 missionaries all waving hankerchiefs and shouting hosanna in unison! Wow!! I also participated in the choir. We practiced Joseph Smith's first prayer and we are going to sing it later today in a devotional that will be broadcasted to all of the other MTCs! Cool cool! The temple walk on Sunday was also a highlight! Love the Provo temple! And to end the day we watched The Character Of Christ Talk by Elder Bednar! Exactly what we all needed! Hmm I don't know what else to say! Just know I'm doing well and I'm happy to be serving! I love waking up everyday, putting on my name tag, and going to work. It's still a little surreal that I am actually here in the MTC but it is becoming more and more real each day! I love this Gospel and I know that it is true! Much love!